Pennan
If
you know your movies, then Pennan may look a little familiar
to you. In 1983, parts of the film Local
Hero.
The Bafta award winning film gave Pennan one
of the best known red telephone boxes in the world, sitting
on the quayside. It has attracted a steady stream of visitors
ever since.
Pennan
has a lot in common with Gardenstown and Crovie.
It sits at the base of a north-facing cliff looking out to
the Moray Firth.
Access to the village is down a narrow and
very steep road that emerges onto the village's single street
at a tight junction.
Like
Gardenstown and Crovie,
in the Summer Pennan is an idyllic place. However in the cold
of winter, when the arctic gales howl straight into Pennan
Bay from the north it feels an altogether different place.
At the east end of Pennan lies its harbour.
These days it is still used by a couple of fishing vessels,
but otherwise its life revolves around leisure craft.
Pennan was famous during the nineteenth century
for the millstones that were quarried to the east of the village,
and which were shipped out from the harbour, or simply rolled
on their edge to more local destinations. When you are here
you understand what a challenge rolling a millstone up the
hill behind the village must have been. |
